Ford Models is a weird agency. Until fairly recently, the granny who run the place was interested mainly in English-speaking models - Ford was the most xenophobic of all NYC agencies. Since the late 90s, Ford scouts are known to appear in all kinds of strange places in the ex-Soviet Union - one example is the Chuvash Republic, where a model contest that's being held in the capital, Cheboksary, attracts the best model potential from nerby republics up and down the Volga river. Some of these girls signed with Ford - and then disappeared. I mention all this coz Wim has a new gallery featuring Daria Smolka - Daria is not the typical Slavic blonde, she comes from near the Black Sea, an area which traditionally produces very interesting models, mostly brunettes (Diana Kovalchuk, Katya Bespiatykh, Olga Maliy, etc).




Daria won a number of model contests in Russia a couple of yeras ago, signed with Ford, did some shows in NYC, and then...nothing. Most of her early Ford pics were really poor - the girl looked very impressive while in Russia, and looks much better in recent publicity pics - at least 1m80 tall with classic body dimensions. Compared to Ukrainian Natalia Gotsiy, Daria is a better model. Which of course doesn't mean much in the modern modeling "biz".

Gisele had her 25th birthday a few days ago - here are some early publicity pics (thanks to r.c.)from the July 1995 issue of Brazilian teen mag Capricho, exactly 10 years ago. Gisele was the "cover girl", about a year after she was one of the winners (she says the second one, the others were Cassia Lara and Claudia Menezes -the 1st winner- from Bahia, 1m80 at the time) of the Brazilian leg of the Look of the Year contest - the following year it became the Model Look. Interestingly, the text says she was born in Tres de Maio, RS, rather than Horizontina - but since I don't know where that place is, I can't say anything more. At 15, she "...never had a boyfriend, but a fling - I can't stand anybody around me all the time...". She was careful about her diet and was weary of cellulite.





If Fabi Tambosi tried her tricks on me - I would surrender in zero time.

It's always fun to read older articles on what the "biz" characters think about models - their "expert opinions" do make some people, who are usually clueless about the real model selection criteria, look silly, but that's life...

Some excerpts from the infamous "Muscles (thank Brussels)" UK Telegraph article from April 18th 2001 - Barbara Amiel, one of A. Wintour's best friends, was running the show, and the paper was (and still is) the mouthpiece of the international Conde Nast fashion empire...

"...A new model army of androgynous Flemish models - all choppy hair and attitude - is taking over the catwalk. Julia Robson reports...
FIRST came the boobs from Brazil; now make way for the muscles from Brussels. Belgium, the home of such avant garde fashion designers as Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela, is the spawning ground of fashion's "new look" models...
...The waifs fared well for a few seasons, but were spectacularly floored last year by the tall, tanned lovelies from Brazil. The reign of these Amazonian creatures with impossibly long legs and surgically enhanced breasts has turned out, surprisingly, to be as brief as their native bikini bottoms. Most of them didn't even bother to show up for castings at the Milano Moda Donna, Italy's fashion week...

Notice here the reference to "surgically enhanced breasts" - since the top "high fashion" Brazilians at the time were Gisele, (slightly enhanced) Ana Claudia, Carol Ribeiro, Isabeli and Jeisa, one wonders what the Conde Nasties had in mind - maybe they didn't believe Gisele's glistening "assets" were "100% natural"?

...The models dominating this year's catwalks and glossies are Flemish femmes fatales - a new model army of androgynous, pale-faced girls with knobbly knees, choppy haircuts, tattoos and heaps of attitude...

Of course, the US Elle editrix -and many others- thought it was just another "beauty wave"...they never noticed the "knobbly knees"...

..."There are two looks going on at the moment," explains Massimo Radaelli, European managing director of IMG models. "The strongest look is androgynous and intellectual, as epitomised by Hannelore and some of the other girls who, although not from Belgium, have 'the Belgian look'. The other is a plainer, understated beauty like Stella Tennant and Karen Elson."...

Massimo used to work for Elite before, and was often seen next to Gisele when she was travelling around Europe - notice the two "beauty ideals", where the "plainer beauty" is Karen Elson, Lagerfeld's "mutant alien"...
Obviously, IMG participated fully in the anti-Brazilian campaign at that time, but made sure that Gisele maintained her status...one wonders how everyone suddenly got bored with all Brazilian mods except Gisele- the one with the biggest boobs...
btw IMG Paris was busy hyping their Brazilian lineup just before the F/W 2001 season - French mags carried the PR, with photos of Gisele, Jeisa, Ana Beatriz and Isabeli. Soon after, IMG Paris was effectively shut down and the modeling biz center in general shifted from Paris to NYC, where Elite had collapsed by mid-2000 and new players, ready to promote the new "beauties", were emerging - so there was a lot more involved in all this than just a simple change in model look preferences...

As for the "Belgian look" - Belgian mods always looked more like Jessica van der Steen, but that hardly concerned the "pros"...

...The new models are not conventionally beautiful. However, their style and character has hit the right note with designers and fashion editors, who are bored of girls whose faces and figures score the perfect "10"...

How come all these characters suddenly got bored with "perfect" models in just one season?...It can't be that they were following diktats from the alpha female editrix and her cronies?
..."A model with a unique, individual look - one that fits the mood of the moment - is 'discovered' by photographers such as Steven Meisel or Mario Testino," explains Cathy Kasterine, a British fashion stylist. "When her pictures are published, the 'clones' suddenly appear. This happened with Fanny Bostrom and Erin Wasson. Girls must look like boys at the moment."...

So Erin Wasson looked "like a boy" in 2001...I guess that's news for the beauty companies that employ her - unless they target the "boy-like" girl market...

"...Included in the Belgian school are Wasson, 20, from Dallas, a blonde with an asymmetric bob which is shaved at the back; Omahyra Garcia Mota, 16, from the Dominican Republic - a towering figure with a crew cut;..."
(a bizzare list of mods follows, but they forget Carolyn Murphy with her wild Paris Vogue hairdo)

..."Omahyra walked into our offices with a friend who was coming to see us about becoming a model. The friend was pretty but ordinary," recalls Tori Edwards of London model agency Models 1. "Omahyra looked like a young Fidel Castro. We sent her out on castings with just her passport photo, and she got work instantly."...

That was not exactly the "official" version of how Omahyra was discovered - but notice that what really thrilled the Models 1 person was the resemblance to a "young Fidel Castro". I guess "Commadante" Rowland is not the only model agent who has a crush on Cuban revolutionaries - Londoners also paid close attention to early photos of boy Fidel...

I wonder if the people who gave "instant work" to Omahyra also got the same vision of a young Fidel...or they thought she was the new female "beauty" ideal, like the brain-dead US Elle characters (who still love "Belgian" Fanny Bostrum and An Oost, as they trickle towards "semi-edgy" status)
Poor Omahyra was never really very popular with the NYC "edgy" crowd and got zero "hip" campaigns - but she has become a cult figure in modeling, where most people know her by name, and also appears in a new Ellen v U book with the title "Omahyra and Boyd".

What followed after the Brazilians were blacklisted - Testino was busy hyping a mature Brazilian transvestite in the months before 9/11 (I must say that her legs looked far better than what you see in most öf today's "A-list" mods) and his latest "discovery" for the S/S 2002 show season was a midgety blonde billed as the "alternative Ipanema girl". Tom Ford and friends were in an erotic frenzy (the "Mary Poppins" look wasn't big with NY Times "fashion journalists" at the time) but after September, when Tom had to cancel his tasteful stripper-enhanced Paris YSL show, he lamented that "It's sad, but people now want beauty...". The "Belgians" disappeared after a while (US Elle still uses some of them) the Brazilians eventually came back, and the rest is history...

Blog visitor R.C. met Fernanda Tavares in a movie theater in Natal, Brazil - and emailed me these mobile phone pics of her and friends with Fe.
The photo collage includes my artistic input - please, spare me the critique !!
I expect more Blog visitors to do the same when they come across interesting fashion models...start emailing me candid photos !!!

Yep, we're moving into top gear summer vacation mode here - good thing Grazia now comes with a free lifestyle mag, full with pics of models and celebs in swimsuits...Liliane's official bfriend is an actor...Ana Beatriz bought another apt, in the posh Sao Paulo area of Higienópolis...French PHOTO has Adriana topless (not really) with a watermelon in her hands - inside are a few more pics, shot by Ellen v U in St Tropez, from Volume III of Victoria's Secret "Sexy"...

Looks like Fabiana Tambosi gets another mag cover - this time it's French Cosmopolitan.
Thanks to Rodolphe for the news.

I don't publish every candid or other pic with models in it - just the ones that deserve special mention...
From the "French PHOTO" party during SPFW - the 40 Graus agency boss with Raica, Ana Beatriz and Eliza Joenck...Raica looks very glam here - and I think Eliza looks better as a blonde...is she still with Anderson Dornelles?
Patricia Barros doesn't show up in candids very often - actually, the third Barros sis, Malu, is more visible lately...Patricia in the pic, with the Lumiere Models(they are married) and the 40 Graus boss...pics by S Mattos.






Raica shows up in the upcoming C&A campaign next to Ricky Martin..and it's nice to see Raquel Zimmermann doing more Brazilian campaigns - she will appear in Animale ads soon.

It's sad to see Roberto Cavalli using ho-hum NYC "A-list" mods in his campaigns recently - the brand probably uses sensual mods, or celebs, in most of their worldwide markets, but Roberto, like Giorgio Armani, seems to increasingly distance himself from fashion - they both invest their money in pretty much everything, from hotels to vodka, except fashion projects...

French PHOTO July 2005 - "Special Bresil" issue stuff:
Ellen V Unwerth shot Ana Beatriz and Adriana Lima in the Parisian Pin-Up studios. Their dimensions are given as: 1m82, 86-58-86 cm for Ana and 1m78, 84-58-84 cm for Adriana. The mag thanks Olivier Daube of Lumiere Models in SP, so he probably arranged the shoot. A few more pics from VS show backstages (actually "Backstage Sexy", by Lisa Posnick) are included plus one of the pics Ellen V U took of Adriana when she was 16 yo and very "high fashion".
Two Brazilian model agencies are presented - Lumiere Models(SP) and 40 Graus (Rio). The top eight Lumiere mods (in addition to Ana and Adriana) are Danielle Nogueira, Raica, Pamela Panichelli, Amanda Salvato, Patricia Barros, Ana Carolina Gequelin, Fabiane Nunes and Mariana Marcki. Top new faces are Paula Blank and Alexandra Albrecht.
Brenda Costa and Bianca Klamt are listed among the 40 Graus agency top names - Fabiana Capra, Marina de Paula and Taina Xavier are some of the new faces.
Following that, some well-known Gisele pics by Demarchelier, Testino, Ellen V U, etc. Finally, more pics of Isabeli (excellent nude by Claudio Capri, shot at Buzios), Ana Hickmann, Brenda Costa, Fernanda Lima, Fe Tavares, Ale Ambrosio (in Zeki swimsuit, by Daniela Federicci). These are probably from a 2005 calendar, shot mainly by Claudio Capri - details?
Then follows a great H&M 2-page ad from last summer, with Isabeli, Daniela Sarahyba, Thais Oliveira, Ana Beatriz and some male mods on a Rio beach - pic by Enrique Badulescu. Here, Ana Beatriz is given as 88-61-88 cm !!!
This is the campaign section - includes pics of Lisa Pomares (is she Brazilian??) for Galleries Lafayette, Ana Paula Mizzetti (IMG Paris), Gisele for Chocolate Jeans Brazil, Fe Tavares and Brenda Costa for Guerlain perfume and Ana Beatriz for Rosa Cha.

The model for Duloren lingerie - with a black male mod and Rio in the background - her body looked like Ana's, but it's probably another Brazilian mod (since this is a Brazilian brand)
Pic below - the mod may be Juliana Almeida.




Overall - a collector's item.

The cover page of French Marie Claire, July 2005. Ana Beatriz in a Dior swimsuit, Vuitton bracelets and Dior makeup. Photo by Frederic Pinet. Inside the mag - excellent L'Oreal ad with Talytha Pugliesi, Great ed with Fernanda Tavares, by Jacques Dequeker.





Funny bit - MC has a feature on the recent popularity of Kate Moss. Her Dior campaign is described as "Sexy Trash" !!! That should amuse the NYC crowd...for them Katie is pure elegance...

Guisela Rhein's agent must be really happy - she looks great on the cover of Italian Marie Claire...Wim has a Guisela photo gallery.
July UK Cosmopolitan has an excellent closeup pic of Cynthia Kirchner on the cover page - Cynthia appears in L'Oreal TV spots, so she can certainly sell internationally...and I'd rather see her than Erin Wasson in US beauty campaigns
Is that Elsa Benitez in Covergirl ads?
New Diesel ads indeed feature Ana Beatriz - and someone who looks like Anne Vialytsina.
Whoever paid for Ellen v Unwerth and the Paris Pin Up studios French PHOTO shoot with Adriana/Ana Bia, intends to get his money's worth...the new PHOTO issue has more saucy Adriana on the cover page.

Aristotrash is not just a British thing - we learn that Prince Albert II of Monaco has a 22-month old illegitimate son...interestingly, he met the Togolese flight attendant during a July 1997 flight to Nice...I wonder if I was on the same flight...
Low-life trash never fails to charm "high fashion" characters - Potty Pete is reportedly a "high fashion muse", after he was seen in Paris with Hedi Slimane. The Sun - always an authority on Katie's exploits - informs us that on the way back from Paris, "...KATE MOSS and PETE DOHERTY had a dramatic fight on a Eurostar train after he accused her of getting back with the father of her child...". We also learn that Snoop Dogg was so "stoned" that he missed a gig. He should get some pointers from Katie.

Nothing terribly new - but these are better, cleaner SPFW pics, via Alex, arriving from Germany (Stern magazine)
Brazilian swimsuits get bigger, and finding good pics from the shows gets harder every year...
Giane Albertoni (x2), Liliane F, Laryssa Castro, Ana Hickmann and Carol Francischini

The Rosa Cha show did not disappoint - but what's with the fake tan?
It may be the same stuff that was left over from the infamous campaign Carolyn Murphy did for MaxMara 5-6 years ago...
Yep, the blonde is Caroline Trentini - and she looks healthier than Ana Bia...Carol can look much better than what you see in shitty US Vogue editorials.
Ana Hickmann is 1m86, Ana Bia is 1m82, the bottom right pic shows that.

More pics from SPFW - Michelle Alves, Ana Beatriz and Carol Ribeiro.





On Monday, Ronaldo will announce the results of the Dream TIM model contest - and probably ask for the winner phone numbers !!! The contestants range from 13 to 19 yo in age, some are new faces and some not so new. I noticed at least one ex-Elite contest winner - as for who the two lucky girls will be (one voted by jury, one by popular vote), after noticing Paula Blank (1m80 tall and 15 yo) in Paris Vogue, I suspect she will be among the winning names. Last year the winner was cute Jessica Pauletto.
You can see the contestants in the TIM site, here.

Why do these two characters look so happy? I wonder...More bliss...

What happened to Laurena - and other Sao Paulo dwellers?
I can use some local reporting !!!
Hello !!!!

Mariana Weickert looked amazing in the exclusive she did for Agua Doce - she is certainly not about to retire !!! Then we have an interesting mod from an equally interesting camera angle, anonther interesting mod who may be Sabrina Jales, Giane Albertoni, Adriana Lima and Fernanda Tavares - from her Zapping exclusive appearance.
Gossip - Mari Weickert may appear in Playboy Brazil, Carol Trentini may have a namorado - and Ronaldo was seen hitting on Raica during a party!! Raica says she gave him her phone number...

From top left - Izabel Goulart, Dani Lopes, Carol Trentini, Ana Claudia + Eliza Joenck + Giane Albertoni, Fabiana Semprebom, Juliana Imai + Carol Francischini, Ana Beatriz with Adriana Lima, Michele Alves and on her own, Cintia Dicker, Dani Lopes + Fabi Nunes

Another pic that impressed me - this is from the actual Agua de Coco show (not the backstage) - Leticia Birkheuer and Ana Beatriz Barros

SPFW is almost over, but the official cancellation news item regarding Alessandra Ambrosio was issued only today - "Victoria's Secrets commitments" is listed as the reason.
Both Raquel Zimmermann (August?)and Adriana Lima are slated for Brazilian Elle cover appearances. Gee - haven't they heard that celebs sell better?
Fernanda Tavares is to appear on the UK Cosmopolitan cover page.
Men's FW moves from Milan to Paris - where Couture week also starts on Monday.


Yeah, I ignored the news of Katie's weird Glastonbury wedding. Just in case you missed it...
"...Kate checked into the Chapel of Love and Loathing in Lost Vagueness for a fake wedding that apparently was only valid for the duration of the festival..."
The local "vicar" also does fake divorces.

Here is the latest on her amore - "...PETE DOHERTY might be going out with Kate Moss, but he still wouldn't say no to a man. The singer, who claimed in a Vanity Fair interview this month that he used to work as a male prostitute, hasn't ruled out homosexuality altogether. "Fuck it, yeah!" he said. "I find men beautiful. I find it in their souls and the wisdom they give you."

I don't think the NYC "Mary Poppins" crowd will be too alarmed - they are more concerned with displays of sensual female "nudity" than Potty Pete's alternative lifestyle choices.

What - the fashionable crowd knew all about Donatella's little problem? The NY Times makes it official: "...Ms. Versace's cocaine addiction, which she discussed in the May issue of Vogue, was an open secret in the industry. At the end of every runway show she would teeter out to greet the audience and the news media, dazed and expressionless as an inflatable doll. It was in June 2004 that friends and family persuaded her to start rehabilitation..."
We also learn that Versace, "...valued at 870 million upon her brother's death, hemorrhaged fiscal value and creative relevance..."
Gee - this is not what I remember reading in US Vogue. AW couldn't possibly be swindling her readers while her rag benefited from Donatella's ad revenue? There wasn't a single AW cronie who wouldn't hail Versace "creativity" all these years - as well as S Meisel's fab campaigns for the brand, which apparently did little to stop the "hemorrhaging"...